Two recent events reminded me of how essential teaching assistants (TAs) are in our schools. My sister, who left education over 20 years ago, recently returned to the classroom as a teaching assistant. Even with a graduate degree in education and lots of experience tutoring in after-school programs, she did not want to be a teacher again as she understood the vast responsibilities of the job. A second event was a staff email from the principal of my new school in which he shared a slideshow on inquiry that will be in a workshop for teaching assistants.

My sister could not have predicted the responsibilities and the need for her many talents when she started her job. She is now waiting for her fourth classroom teacher of the year to arrive, as two quit, and one was just fired. She works with and teaches a group of special needs students within an elementary classroom. Her days not only involve designing lessons and teaching but, from time to time, stopping fights, finding missing students, and working with her principal to develop positive behavior support techniques. While my sister’s case is extreme in all she is called on to do, mainly with behavioral issues, I am reminded of TAs I worked with over the years and the many roles they filled. I am not in a position to list all the talents and tasks teaching assistants apply in their work, but I am aware of many, especially noting that they can be true teaching partners if so empowered as they are in my new school.

In my previous schools, I provided monthly PD workshops for TAs around technology use. The workshops would begin with my learning how lessons I had taught and teacher tech initiatives were working or not working with the students. We would then learn about an instructional strategy enhanced by an app, website, or another tool. We learned strategies from one another to apply in future lessons. What helped me become a better designer was learning how the teaching assistants would help apply the strategies in their classrooms.

Now, as I shift to counseling at my new school, I definitely will look to create a program to meet with the TAs to learn from them as we further develop our guidance program.

I can see myself starting with a few questions:

  • What are the listed roles of TAs?
  • What are the unlisted ones?
  • How do the TAs feel they are perceived? Supported? Empowered?
  • What voice do TAs have in how classrooms are managed?
  • How do they see their students as learners, especially regarding social and emotional (SEL) growth?
  • What strategies and designed experiences for SEL growth have been most effective?
  • What insights might they have for parent needs in supporting SEL initiatives at home?

 

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